Good News!!!

I got a job!  Yea! Starting in February I will be the assistant preschool teach at the International Preschool in Lund.  The website is here: http://www.ipsl.se/ The job is perfect for so many reasons.  First of all it is part time.  I will be working Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays from 8:30 to 2.  But maybe most important everyone speaks English!  Glorious English!  Don't get me wrong.  I am trying to learn Swedish, I really am but it is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated.  Part of the problem is that it is too easy to just speak English to everybody!  I am so excited to be a working mom again.  I have never not worked and the past three months in Sweden unemployed has felt weird for me! Ups and downs just like everything else :-)

St. Lucia Day and other Christmas celebrations

So in Sweden in December it is dark really early.  If it is an overcast day, which is often, it is dark by about 3 pm.  The sun sets about 4 pm but it dark earlier than that.  A Swede told me that is why there are so many traditions and celebrations around this time of year and most of them involve light.  St Lucia Day is on December 13th and the day celebrates St Lucia who brings light to the dark winter days.  We went to a St. Lucia concert the weekend before the holiday at Domskyrkan (a huge cathedral in the middle of town).  It was beautiful but very hard to capture on camera.  It began with about 35 people carrying candles as they sang the traditional Lucia song.  A song a knew pretty well by then and I will tell you why in a few minutes. This concert was special because it was specifically for children and families which means that Annalise got to sit in the aisle with her friends and get an unobstructed view of this awesome concert.  Of course she spent the majority of the concert playing and talking to her friends and enjoying the freedom of sitting with the other kids but that was fine.  It was so beautiful to hear the songs sung in Swedish.
The reason I knew the Lucia song is because both Ray and Annalise had been singing it over and over again preparing for St. Lucia Day.  Both of them performed in a program on St. Lucia Day. The day began earlier than usual as Annalise's program was supposed to begin 7:15 am.  This was Annalise's first school program and it was in Swedish!  She knew all the songs because she had been singing them over and over again for a week but during the program she stood in the back with her mouth closed!  Even during the English songs, not a peep.  it was fun anyway!  After listening to the kids sing we had fika and ate yummy Lucia rolls!  Next it was Ray's turn!  Lucas and I took the bus to work with Ray so we could watch the program, and enjoy another fika!
In my department they make all the newbies sing Lucia songs in Swedish. There were 10 of us and we performed two Lucia songs in Swedish, jingle bells, Lucia in Italian and our special parody of a parody which we called Food project (think a bad remake of Bad Project which was a great parody of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance). On a side note, I caught an HBO special of Lady Gaga's Monster Ball at MSG and it was fantastic. We had food costumes and food props for the Lady Gaga remake. I was the Lucia and wore my lab coat as my white gown, a red ribbon around my waist and a crown of candles on my head. Our performance lasted about 10 minutes and everyone enjoyed the off key singing.  It was a ton of  fun.  Lucas and I loved it and we have it all on video!!!
Spending Christmas thousands of miles away from family and friends is hard.  We knew it would be.  It was one of the big cons on our pro and con list.  So we decided to embrace Christmas as much as possible.  This involves getting a real tree which we hadn't done since I was pregnant with Annalise.  But how do you get a Christmas tree home with no car.  First we asked to borrow our friends' cargo bike but that didn't work out.  We decided we would have to carry it in the stroller somehow.  We brought bunjee cords and we felt prepared.  But let me tell you how you know if you are Swedish.  If you bike to pick out a Christmas tree with your two kids and then after you buy it you put your kids in their bike trailer, heave the 6 foot tree over your shoulder and bike home with one hand.  The guy was so fast I couldn't get a picture!
Another fun Christmas activity is building gingerbread houses.  Ray's dept has a party every year where everyone makes a house from start to finish (quite a long process!) and then they get judged by the Sustainability Engineering Dept.  This was a first for Ray, Annalise, and I and we had a lot of fun but we have a lot to learn about making gingerbread houses!  We could not get our roof together and had to bake another piece of gingerbread and try to glue it on!  Needless to say we did not win; but we did not finish last either.  The mushroom house pictured below won!
We finally got a chance to take some pictures of Christmas lights and Lund all decorated for the holidays but I have not uploaded the pictures- I will soon.

Our trip to England

This trip was full of firsts!  The first of many "firsts" was our first flight on Ryan Air.  In case you don't know about Ryan Air it a super cheap airline in Europe, (think southwest and then tons cheaper!).  In some ways it was a crazy experience.  After getting our gate announced right before we had to board the plane we literally ran with about 100 other people across the airport to make it there in time.  The whole time we were on the plane the flight attendants were trying to sell things to us; it was like being in an informercial. Weird! But the tickets were so cheap who cares! Our good friends Harriet, Mike, Oliver, and Martha live in St. Albans about 30 minutes north of London.  We had not seen them for three years since they left Denver and it was so great spend time with them again! Mike came to pick us up at the airport and Ray and I got to ride in a car driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time.   Just when I thought we were used to it Mike had to make a turn and I swear I thought the other car was going to hit us! Also, the whole weekend we were visiting Ray and I kept trying to get into the car on the drivers side!  May I add that it felt a bit luxurious to be riding in a car!
It was so fun to introduce Lucas to Martha and see Annalise and Oliver play together.  We ate the best food and drank more red wine than we had in a long time. Mike and Harriet are the best cooks. It felt so great to be surrounded by friends and to spend time with people who really "know you." We have started to make friends in Sweden but it just takes time to let the relationships develop.  It was also great to spend time with friends who love our kids!

While we were there Mike and Ray hit up a couple of bars in St. Albans including Ye Old Fighting Cocks, which is one of the oldest pubs in England; Angela and Harriet had a night out in; we crashed a three year old's birthday party where we rode on a steam train and met a crazy Santa; and we took the kids into London for some sightseeing. Sightseeing in London with 4 kids is crazy tiring but really fun. We stopped off at Buckingham Palace to have tea with the Queen. Annalise and Oliver kept yelling, "Queen, Queen come out and play with us!" Then we caught a double decker bus and saw Big Ben, The London Eye, the Marble Arch, and some famous stuff.  We had afternoon tea on Oxford street and then enjoyed the Christmas lights and Department store display windows. Finally we caught the tube back to St. Albans at rush hour. Every time we had to stop for the bathroom while we were in London it took about 1 hour to get all people in and out. We spent more time going to the bathroom than riding the bus! Our last night was relaxing and fun as the kids got a chance to play some more and we drank more wine. Thank you, thank you, thank you Mike, Harriet, Oliver and Martha for being such great friends and great hosts! Come visit us in Sweden soon!
When it was time to go it was a little sad to say good bye to our friends, but also it was hard to leave an English speaking country.  When we got on the plane to come home I heard Swedish for the first time in four days and I have to be honest it made me sad.  This was our first trip where coming home meant coming home to Sweden and it was difficult.  There are still ups and downs but that is life.  Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Jul Market at Kulturen

Christmas is a big deal in Lund and the festivities are just getting started. Many of the streets and store fronts are decorated, musical and choir concerts are held in the city squares and Advent candles are everywhere. This past weekend, Nov 26-27, marked the "official"start to the holiday season. A Christmas festival/market was held at Kulturen, which is an awesome outdoor/indoor museum featuring Swedish life over the past 200 - 300 years. There was a blacksmith shop, small farm houses, larger aristocratic houses, a small church, and a replica of a town center with narrow cobblestone streets and an open courtyard. Outside of each building was a box which had toys representing that time era. One of the toy boxes contained wooden swords and shields. This prompted a spontaneous sword fight between Ray and Wes.  

 There were many vendors spread out across the museum grounds selling homemade goodies and handmade goods such as hats, scarves, jams, jellies, breads, mustards, Christmas ornaments, wreaths, books, glugg (spiced wine), jewelry, etc. The small church was where the chocolate venders set up (praise the Lord!). There were also arts and craft demonstrations for the kids (and adults). One fascinating vendor was a lady making marbled paper. We watched her do this several times and Angela fell in love with one of the papers so we bought it. The process is shown in the slide show below along with the piece of art we now own and plan to hang in our apartment. Annalise got a gingerbread cookie shaped like a pig with her name one it (pork is so good in so many different ways).

We are going to soak up as many Christmas traditions in Lund as we can. Here's to a bottomless cup of glugg.

God Jul!

ps. We leave for England tomorrow to visit our dear friends Mike, Harriet, Oliver and Martha. So excited to reconnect with old friends!